Category Archives: Search

The Apple WWDC closes and it leaves crumbs on the floor. Let’s see what message they leave us: iOS 8 and Yosemite will be a another major push from Apple to continue to dominate the photo tech world. Unlike app makers, the Copernito team has the luxury of waiting and analysing what the market likes and dislike for future inclusion in their operating system. They also have a formidable analytical tool with the app store. This coming release is another proof of that. Syncing in the cloud:…

While we were exploring Techcrunch Disrupt in New York last week, we were welcomed by two French entrepreneurs based in Boston who showed us Sharalike, an impressively simple yet powerful app to manage and share mobile photos slideshows: We decide to learn more and sat down with Etienne Leroy, Co-founder, CMO, CPO of Sharalike In a few words, what is Sharalike ? Sharalike’s technology was designed to revolutionize photo and video sharing through its simple, one-stop-shop approach. Within seconds users can store, sort, enhance, create and edit…

There are two types of tech start-ups in the photo space: Those who enhance the photographic experience and those who use photos as a starting point. The first are your editing, filter, archiving apps and web services like Instagram, EyeEm or VSCO, the second are usually in the social media realm, like Facebook, Pinterest or G+. Walking the aisles of Techcrunch’s Disrupt NY mostly confirmed this division. Most new photo/tech companies present offered solutions to the photographic flow, allowing users to better managed their ever-growing…

Let’s face it. Photos are dumb. Without context they don’t reveal much. While they can be really good at evoking emotions, they are really bad at explaining their content. In fact, without a viewer, an image explains nothing. Let me explain. When confronted with a photograph, we are only able to recognize the items in it because of our memory. We have seen them before, thus we know what they are. Those unfamiliar to us remain unknown. A photo explains only if you already know the…

News emerged today that Google is hard at work on a new, somewhat secret bookmarking service. According to Florian Kiersch, a German student who enjoys trawling Google code, the new Chrome feature still being developed will replace Google collections and will be called Google Stars. Google Stars promises to not just save a link, like other bookmarking services, but the whole page, along with images and videos, organising in a searchable visual grid format. Your bookmarks will be saved in a collection format, under a theme…

It didn’t last long. Less than a week after Dropbox and Twitter announced new photo oriented features, the other major players responded. Loud and clear. Google bets on Email First Google. Today, it announced a tighter integration of its very popular Gmail with it’s photo backup solution Google Photo album. Now, it will be even easier to attached photos to any email directly from your drive account. One click easy. Since email is still the most used online communication tool – that is changing too*-,…

The traditional image licensing business is a transactional one. Historically, the management of rights was considered to be an ongoing service, but with royalty free models eclipsing rights managed volumes, this is of little to no value for today’s image buyer. All value is wrapped up in the transaction: image rights and metadata are pre-vetted, and those are the most important and critical components to the product. Consumers are buying a license – not an image – and that license makes warranties of accuracy that assuages…

It was just a question of time. We have repeatedly wrote here about how the current photo licensing model is broken and obsolete. We also explained at full length how image data collection and third-party revenue are the new gold mine. Getty apparently heard and is now applying. (If you want to read how it works, there is a great full explanation here) Getty Images announcement today that it has put 35 Million of its 80 million images up for free is…

The next frontier in digital revenue is the yet untapped landscape of the millions of photographs uploaded and shared everyday. Photographs are considered by many to represent more than 75% of the internet real estate, yet no one has yet successfully cracked its full revenue potential. With almost unlimited resources, both technological and financial, it is puzzling to see that even Google has not yet successfully monetized it. It is not for lack of trying. But its strategy, for now, has been more about herding…

During this period of the year, like many of us that write about photography, I receive many well wishes from a wide variety of photographers, photo galleries, photo agencies and pretty much anyone involved in the photography business. They all come via email mostly from people I have never communicated with in my life. Under the disguise of wishing me a warm holiday season and a healthy new year, they also act as a not subtitle piece of marketing screaming “look at my work”. I…